Good Neighbor is a cozy, home-like local coffee and retail shop in Hampden, but how many coffee shops offer overnight accommodations? Good Neighbor does.
Guesthouse by Good Neighbor is a seven-room boutique hotel with a front desk staffed part-time and many features one expects from a hotel. There is a lobby and a “living room,” they have cribs, and they can hold your luggage. They are dog-friendly for canines up to 50 pounds, though a fee applies. Overnight guests have a private entrance and do not need to enter through the shop.
Good Neighbor was established in 2020 as a mixed-retail coffee shop with an emphasis on community, local goods, a home-like feel, global curiosity, and a healthy, delicious menu. Owners Shawn Chopra and Anne Morgan added “Hotel” to their repertoire in 2024.
“The hotel was definitely a larger thought and an idea after two years of being in business,” Chopra told Baltimore Fishbowl. “When we thought of upstairs from Good Neighbor, we thought of, ‘Well, what if people could stay here? What if Hampden could have a place where people could stay? It’s a beautiful community, would it work?’”
They wondered if it would be Airbnb-style, or more bed-and-breakfast, and decided they wanted to control the experience more and run it as a hotel, which is how it is licensed.
“Really, it’s a seven-bedroom place to stay, as if you were staying at your neighbor’s home, and they were taking care of you, and they were telling you where to go eat… what to do in the city,” Chopra said. “And so, it felt aligned.”
Since the hotel opened, Chopra and Morgan have hosted more than 1,000 guests, two Design Camps, workshops, and artist retreats.
True to their ethos of sparking global curiosity, Chopra and Morgan have filled the Guesthouse’s lobby and rooms with designs inspired from as far away as India and Egypt and as close to home as Baltimore. Chopra is from India, Morgan is from Egypt, both have family who remain there, and Baltimore has been their home for 13 years, so blending design elements from all three places was natural. They also added styles from other parts of the world, like Japan and Denmark, aiming for both calm and a sense of possibility.
While faraway places figure prominently in the rooms’ designs, there is a heavy emphasis on the “neighbor” element, too. Each room’s bathrooms have handmade concrete sinks by nearby business Luke Works, stationery in the rooms is designed in collaboration with local Odette Press, and the original artwork hails from both Baltimore and India.
“Part of Good Neighbor is I want people to feel like you are in Baltimore, but then also can be transported somewhere else,” Chopra said. “And so, with the hotel, we designed kind of those three [places] in mind.”
Chopra and Morgan are married, with a five-year-old child and three-month-old twins. They understand the experience of growing up in the U.S. as immigrant kids and would travel back to their respective countries every few years to see cousins and grandparents.
“I think that’s how it’s kind of been in our background, and not just on the design side, on the hospitality side,” Chopra said. “The idea of both of our homes used to be [and] are very open and friendly and people coming in and people sleeping over. Chai is a big part of it, sitting and having something eat, tea at three o’clock every day is a big part of my family’s ritual.”
The Guesthouse rooms vary in size and layout. They run from 445 square feet for a king-sized suite to 265 square feet for a queen-sized suite. One room even evokes a sleepover feeling with two sets of bunk beds, giving it almost a hostel-like feel. That room also has a small outdoor space for the guests, and it opens the possibilities of what sorts of groups can stay there.
“We were just curious to see what the neighborhood would want,” Chopra said. “We wanted to have a range of price points, and we figured people would be coming with friends, or they’d be coming with little ones, and they wanted to rent that room, plus the room next door.
The set-up lends itself to families or even a group of young adult friends who would like a reasonably priced hotel in a great neighborhood to act as a home base. It can also be ideal for parents of nearby college students visiting for a weekend.
Unlike other hotels, a stay at Guesthouse by Good Neighbor includes the fun (and perhaps slightly dangerous for one’s bank account) option of a fully shoppable experience. “Every surface and corner of Guesthouse by Good Neighbor is shoppable,” reads the website. Guests can purchase the candles, the linens, the artwork, the shelving — not right from the rooms, of course. But if a guest has never smelled a nicer fragrance, they can purchase the room spray that delivered it. Never slept on softer sheets? Those can be purchased, too. Would that piece of art be a perfect gift for a loved one? It is available for sale; just point your camera at the QR code.
A bonus for everyone who stays at the Guesthouse is that they get a free drink at Good Neighbor downstairs, along with deals on the breakfast dishes and other options on the menu. The hotel is its own space, with the lobby and a common living room, but Chopra and Morgan want people staying there to feel connected to the downstairs coffee shop, too.
Chopra recalls that when they first opened the shop in 2020, they tried to do everything all the time. They tried all kinds of markets and monthly events because they were so excited and wanted to see all kinds of things happen. Now, with experience behind them, they are trying to see where they have the biggest impact. For the couple, that has boiled down to moving at a speed that allowed them to be sustainable while still showcasing local talent and offering their space to their neighbors.
“We’re always excited to promote someone who’s making something, promote a chef that’s doing something cool, doing a collaborative event, also be the host for people,” Chopra said. “For now, we like when there’s other people who are doing exciting things, and they want to use our space…. Space is at a premium, and we want people to have shot using the space, especially the outdoor space in the garden during the summer. So, it takes a lot. Yeah, it’s a lot of energy, but it’s really why we wanted to have a shop like this.”
